A Smattering of Mattering

A Smattering of Mattering

Are you aware of the contributions you make? I’m not just talking about the work you do, but how people feel around you? You make a difference, you know, in ways you may not have any idea about.

You say a nice little off-hand thing, and make my day.

You do a little something and it takes a load off me, and what a relief.

You often don’t even notice that you did it, or said it. You are just kind of like that.

Important. You are important to me, to us. Do you see it? Do you feel it? How do you feel when you feel important?

Being important is natural. It’s just how we are.

At the same time, we often let stuff get in the way of who we are. It starts with mislearning when we are little. It’s not our fault; we have a million million things to learn as babies, and we just don’t know stuff, so we get things wrong, and then they sink into our unconscious minds, and we spend decades of our lives with these wrong ideas directing our behavior, our beliefs..

Sometimes that wrong idea is the notion that we don’t matter. That no one notices us. That we don’t make a difference. Poor we.

Back in the dark ages, I learned how to turn invisible. Unfortunately, you couldn’t actually see through me, that would have been cool, but I learned how to pull inside so you would forget to notice me. It was a wonderful trick, kept me safe when I needed it, and is fun to pull out from time to time, just to keep my hand in. But I still mattered.

We matter when we are depressed, or when we are sick, or in pain, as well as when we are happy. We matter to a lot of people; we have an impact on the lives of others, even on the lives of people we don’t know.

Sometimes, when we think we don’t matter, we work extra hard to make ourselves indispensable. That’s exhausting. And then we get there, we are indispensible, but we still don’t feel important.

A true feeling of importance, like happiness, comes from our core self, our perfect self. To get there, we need to do two things; relax, and slow down inside. Think of it this way: It’s like driving down a country road looking for the turnoff for perfect self. If I am all distracted with negative thoughts, I will miss the turn. If I am going too fast, I will miss the turn. If I’m all stressed out, I will miss the turn, and have to go on for awhile until I can turn around and try for it again.

In fact, when we can slow down inside, still ourselves, let our thoughts flow unimpeded, lots of nice stuff happens. It starts by happening inside, and then radiates to our outside lives, and then, hoo boy! you’d better get ready for some nice stuff to happen for you. Mean people leave, prosperity becomes normal, happy is the usual state, fun and interesting things come your way, and life is juicier for being lived.

If you aren’t worth that kind of wonderful life, I don’t know who would be.

How have I changed from thinking I’m irrelevant to knowing how much I matter?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 06092013